 Records show that rugby football was being played in the City of Sheffield as long ago as the early 1860s indeed four Sheffield players represented Yorkshire in the first ever recorded county match against Lancashire in 1869.Officially Sheffield Rugby Union Football Club was founded in 1902 and subsequently found a permanent home at Abbeydale Park, Dore in 1920 where it has three senior pitches.Over the years Sheffield RUFC has enjoyed mixed fortunes, existing as it does, in a city focussed primarily upon soccer, but arguably its most successful seasons were in the late 1970s into the early years of the centennial that heralded the advent of the professional era.